Orally administered pharmaceutical compositions are provided to patients in many dosage forms, including solid forms such as capsules, caplets or tablets and liquid forms such as solutions and suspensions. For many patients including young children, older persons and incapacitated persons, a liquid dose form is preferable because of the ease with which it may be swallowed.
Many liquid cough and cold compositions contain large amounts of sorbitol and other sugars, typically included to improve palatability. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,730,997 discloses a composition containing about 20% to about 45% by weight sorbitol and about 10% to about 15% by weight hydrogenated maltose syrup. Such compositions are purported to improve palatability but high levels of sorbitol and maltose may contribute to the degradation of active ingredients such as phenylephrine, for example.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a palatable, liquid dosage form comprising phenylephrine with reduced propensity for degradation of phenylephrine.